Alpha 3 Difference between Mercenary and Ally units? This in yet?

Curious if that has made into the Gold edition, as the tooltips talk about this, but yet I don't seem to notice a difference between mercenary and allied units, or not sure if this something that's available in the Phillip game, where some cities become automatic allies of yours, after you conquer it. (E.G. Larissa and Olooson are good examples)

So is that in yet? Or is that feature of ally units solely linked through the diplomacy screen, where I would have to truly ally the faction through there instead to see this feature?

What the documentation calls allied units can only be recruited after making an alliance through the new diplomacy system. I can see the confusion between that and when a city becomes an "ally" after completing certain objectives. I'll look into clarifying that in the documentation.

In game terms, allied units fall somewhere between mercenaries and your native troops. Allies have a -25 morale penalty rather than the -50 for mercs and are the same cost as native units.

Also looks like the in the Phllip scenario, alliances are locked out. Is that going to change or will it stay the same?

If it stays the same, perhaps the objectives that you capture that decide to ally with you, so at least the original scenario can take advantage of that feature? As it's sort of lame that my Thessalian calvary are still mercenaries, where 2 of it's 5 major cities decided to actually ally with me. But again, not sure how it would be program something like that, so just a thought as you continue to develop gold.